This invention relates to a wire-dot impact type printer in general, and more particularly to a drive control mechanism of a wire-dot impact type color printer.
There has been proposed a printer of a type wherein a printing paper is passed between a printing head and a platen having a plurality of sintered members saturated with different color inks mounted on the periphery thereof, and the paper is pressed against a selective one of the ink saturated members by means of wires in the printing head, so that a color print may be effected on the paper. According to the prior art, an electric motor or the like driving source has been employed to rotate the platen to thereby select a desired one of colors to be applied to the paper, in addition to two motors used for transporting the printing paper and the printing head respectively, resulting in increase in the size of the printer itself, as well as in complexity of the individual drive motors.
In this connection we have already proposed to use a one-way rotation clutch as a transmission component of the drive mechanism of the printer so that the control for feeding the paper is established by an electric motor being rotated in one direction while the platen is driven by the same motor being rotated in the opposite direction to effect the color changing operation. This means that the single driving motor is employed for rotating the platen as well as for transporting the paper. However, the color changing operation will require the motor to be rotated in the opposite direction, different from the ordinary rotational direction during the printing operation. Thus, the color changing operation has been troublesome and time-consuming.